People Next Door, The

1 9 8 9 (USA)
10 x 30 minute episodes

Jeffrey Jones (Beetlejuice) played Walter Kellogg, a widower with two children who lived in a town called Covington (whose major industry was eggs) and made his living drawing a weird ‘Far Side’-style comic strip called ‘The People Next Door’.

But Walter also had a weird psychic ability. He could make things appear or come to life just by imagining them.

Jeffrey’s fiancee Abigail (Mary Gross), was a psychiatrist who shared a house with her beautician sister, Sissy (Christina Pickles). Abby didn’t believe Walter.

That’s because, unlike his son, Matthew (Chance Quinn) and daughter, Aurora (Jackie Bernstein), Abby hadn’t yet met the creatures of Walter’s imagination . . .

Like his muses – a mirror and a moose head – who hung around and argued with each other. Or Mr Id, the lecherous little man in a trench coat who liked to look up women’s dresses whenever Walter had a lustful thought.

The series was co-created by Wes Craven of A Nightmare On Elm Street fame and had the dubious distinction of being the first show to be cancelled in the 1989-1990 TV season (after only five episodes had aired).

Walter Kellogg
Jeffrey Jones
Abigail MacIntyre
Mary Gross
Aurora Kellogg
Jackie Bernstein
Matthew Kellogg
Chance Quinn
Sissy MacIntyre
Christina Pickles
Truman Fipps, the mailman
Leslie Jordan